


On the Quieting of Ghosts

by lodessa



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-11
Updated: 2005-01-11
Packaged: 2018-02-27 14:42:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2696732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was much happier in class than out of it. Maybe happier is the wrong word, since no one in their right mind would have ever thought of calling him happy, in class or out of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Quieting of Ghosts

He was much happier in class than out of it. Maybe happier is the wrong word, since no one in their right mind would have ever thought of calling him happy, in class or out of it. He was considerably less miserable during class than the rest of the time however. Other students longed for holidays, he dreaded them. Class was the only time that he was free of the insecurities, the doubt, the self loathing that plagued him the rest of the time. During class he was attentive, articulate, and even confident. Outside of class he spent most of his time hiding in the library, trying to recapture the feeling that class time gave him, but there was no one to see, no one to notice when he studied everything he could get his hands on, things far above his grade level. His solitary study somehow felt as though it was missing a vital component and it was.

Her mind was also more at ease during classes, although they were classes she taught rather than classes she was a student in. As a teacher she was authoritative, precise, calm, and faultless. No one could lack esteem for what she did, even herself. But she was haunted by memories the moment the last student left the classroom. Over and over she saw him fall, felt Tom's gaze upon her once more, remembered Rubeus being dragged away, the terrified expression on his face and Myrtle's lifeless face frozen forever. She hear Tom breathe behind her, could feel his stare boring into her from behind. Alone she was never alone but the students proved to be the one respite granted her. In front of a class she never one thought of the past, was not haunted by Tom, did not remember the corpses of Myrtle and Ulysses. She remembered that Rubeus was safe now and that Tom had disappeared long ago. For a few hours a day her mind was at peace.

They were always similar in that but now he too is troubled by bad dreams day and night, sleeping and waking. He too now teaches rather than learns and finds it to be the only escape from the ghosts of the past and his own self recriminations. Their memories are too gruesome to be shaken off lightly and so they both go on toiling, enjoying the otherwise torturous hours where the students come and take their pain away. 

He is still somehow her student after all these years, and she takes the fear away and he lightens her heart.


End file.
